9 Female Pirates That You Would've Been Extremely Terrified Of

Mary Read masqueraded as a man from the time she was young. Her mother would dress her as her brother to get money from older relatives. She married a soldier but after his death she moved to the West Indies. She was captured by pirates there who asked her to join their ranks. She set sail on the Revenge with Anne Bonny and Calico Jack. But was taken by captors with Bonny and Calico but died in her cell from fever. 

 After the death of Jeanne de Clisson's husband, she sold her land to buy three warships. She called them the Black Fleet. She and her crew sailed the English Channel and captured French ships. They also beheaded aristocrats. She later settled down with a lieutenant named Sir Walter Bentley.

 People believed that Jacquotte Delahaye faked her own death to escape the government who was after her for piracy. She turned to piracy as a way to care for her mentally handicapped father. She took up a new identity to escape him and even disguised herself as a man. When she reappeared she adopted the name Back from the Dead Red. 

Queen Teuta is known as the earliest recorded pirate in history, male or female. After the death of her husband Agron, she led the Ardiaei Tribe which resides near the area of the Western Balkans. She and her army would plunder Roman ships and would terrorized trade routes between Greece and Italy. Illyria and Rome went to war after they tried to come to an agreement about what the Queen was doing. The Romans won and requested an annual tribute from Illyria and she lost her throne.

Sadie earned her nickname for being violent. It is rumored that she got her ear bitten off during a fight with a group of women in New York. She assembled a crew and found a ship to set sail on the Hudson River. She and her band of pirates would raid farmhouses and mansions near the water. She was known as "Queen of the Waterfront" because she and her gang would kidnap people for ransom.

Anne Cormac was an Irish pirate known for her red hair and wild temper. She married small-time pirate James Bonny. They moved to an island in the Bahamas called Pirates Republic. She and Bonny divorced and she became became first mate and lover to Calico Jack Rackham. They were captured by English forces during a raid. Rackham was executed but because she was pregnant, she earned her freedom. 

Anne Dieu-Le-Veut was twice widowed when she met Laurens de Graaf, a Dutch buccaneer she was supposed to duel with to avenge the death of one of her late husbands. He refused to fight her and instead asked for her hand in marriage. The two set sail together but she took over when de Graaf was struck down by a cannonball. 

Sayyidda was a pirate queen who ruled from 1515-1542. She ruled the Western Mediterranean and was feared by the Spanish and Portugese. She later married the king of Morrocco but was overthrown by her son-in-law

Ching Shih is known as one of the most feared pirates in the China Sea. She was working as a prostitute when pirates captured her. She later married a famous pirate named Zhen Yi. After his death, with the support her in laws she was considered for leadership of the Red Fleet, an army of more than 1800 vessels and 80,000 crew members. She created a strong team to lead the Red Fleet and established her own government and tax system.